Speck Takes Charge In Berlin

Speck Takes Charge In Berlin

Wieland Speck is remarkably relaxed for a man at the helm of one of theworld’s truly important film festivals. Wieland is the director of thePanorama section of the Berlin International Film Festival and everyoneis trying to get his attention. A French radio journalist arriveswithout an appointment and is trying to get a last-minute interview.Filmmakers buzz in and out with anxious questions about their upcomingscreenings. Speck handles it all calmly and graciously.

I ask him how he selects the films he shows. “I look for films whichexamine the processes and changes happening in societies. I try toprogram films which entertain without switching off the brain. Filmsshould stimulate the thinking ability,” says Speck.

I asked Speck about this year’s Panorama. “The films this year are morecomplex. The great dualisms are falling apart: East-West, Gay-Straight,Black-White. It is no longer a bipolar world. American Independentfilms are more European and European films are more American. The mostsuccessful films this year don’t have a dualistic approach.”

The focal point of the Panorama this year is what Speck calls the“girl’s film.” These are stories told (usually) from girl’s points ofview, most frequently focusing on the late teen-age years. “Men havetypically been the ones making sexual awakening films. Now women arelooking at this,” Speck says. “Su Friedrich’s film “Hide And Seek,” afilm about a tomboy growing up, is a good example.” (Friedrich’s filmhas been picked up for world sales by Media-Luna) The filmmakers arealso making portraits of men, from a female point of view. “These womenare not afraid of men. They portray what they like about men and whatthey don’t like.”

I asked Speck what typically happens to films selected for thePanorama. “Every film in the Panorama goes on to have a great festivalcareer, so the next step for many of the films will be to go on to manymore festivals.” Distribution comes harder. “Much more time is neededto finalize a sale today. Beginning in the late-eighties the dealsbegan to happen much more slowly. Now a film will often arrive inBerlin with a PR person, a lawyer, and a sales company behind it.”

The distributors have changed as well. “The distributors and theaterowners are not as adventurous as they used to be,” says Speck.“Distributors carefully study the films their competitors are bringingout before they will commit to a new acquisition. It can take as longas a year to finalize a deal.” Aggravating the situation is the rapiddecline in the number of screens devoted to “specialized” films. “InBerlin in the mid-eighties there were 35 art houses. Now there are 10.All of those theaters are still in business, but most of them areshowing the big American studio films.” Speck hopes that these theaterowners will begin to get frustrated having their program dictated by bigAmerican conglomerates. But as he says this he sounds skeptical.

The prospects for selling an American independent film to Europeantelevision have diminished as well. “State funded broadcasters aretrying to compete with commercial television.” In Germany, for example,this has lead to the almost complete collapse of “specialized”programming on the German “third programs,” the third level state-fundedbroadcasters which at one time bought a great deal of non-mainstreamAmerican film. “WDR in Cologne is really the only one left,” Specksays. The broadcasters assume Arte will become the new supporter ofthis kind of filmmaking, but Arte’s resources are extremely limited.

Because of this decline in demand for “difficult” films, Speck has beengradually reducing the size of the Panorama over the past severalyears. “We now show 18 films less than we did five years ago. We tryto focus more attention on each of the films we select.” Despite this,the Panorama is still large, showing 38 features, 11 documentaries, and22 shorts. To help make sense of all the films, Speck has created threePanorama subsections. The Panorama Special section (18 films) shows thelarger movies like “Marvin’s Room,” and “Set It Off.” Panorama Documentary(11 films) shows non-fiction films like Philip Roth’s “I Was AJewish Sex Worker” and Issac Julien’s “Frantz Fanon: Black Skin White Mask” PanoramaArt and Essay (20 films) concentrates on what Speck calls Auteur Cinema,concentrating on films like Alex Sichel’s “All Over Me,” David Hare’s“The Designated Mourner,” and Alexander Sukurov’s “Mutter Und Sohn.”

Speck talked about the huge increase in American independent filmproduction. “There is no similar increase in Europe because the statesubsidy of filmmaking has not increased. And there is very littlemarket for many European films,” Speck says. “In the United Statesthere is still a chance that you can make a film and get rich. It ispart of the American Dream. In Europe filmmakers know that will neverhappen.”

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